1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid composition, an ink jet recording method, ink jet recording apparatus and a recorded image.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink jet recorded image, in particular, a recorded image formed with an aqueous ink involves a problem on fastness properties such as water fastness and scratch resistance. As measures to solve this problem, it has been known in recent years to use an ink jet ink containing an emulsion.
On the other hand, as a technique for forming a fast image, is mentioned a technique of using an aqueous liquid composition containing a water-insoluble polymer present in a state of an emulsion. When the water-insoluble polymer present in the state of the emulsion in the liquid composition (hereinafter also referred to as a polymer emulsion) is applied to a recording medium, the polymer emulsion aggregates to form a film as the water around the emulsion decreases. The film formed can protect an image formed on the recording medium to improve the fastness of the image.
However, the above-described technique has caused the following problems in some cases. The polymer held in the state of the emulsion in an aqueous medium has caused in some cases destruction of the emulsion structure due to storage under a severe environment (high temperature, vibration), long-term storage or an influence by the pH of a coloring material upon addition of the coloring material into the liquid composition to cause deposition of polymer components. When the liquid composition containing the polymer emulsion has been applied to a recording medium, in some cases, the filming (aggregation) of the polymer emulsion has rapidly progressed to make the film formed uneven, and consequently the quality of the resulting image has become insufficient, and the fastness has not been sufficiently improved.
In order to solve this problem, in an aqueous ink using an emulsion, it is known to add an aid for inhibiting the rapid progress of filming of the emulsion to improve the uniformity of a film formed by the emulsion. As such aids are generally used plasticizers and high-boiling alcoholic solvents. However, such an aid is liable to remain in a film formed, and consequently the fastness of the film may not be improved in some cases. On the other hand, in recent years, there has been a dramatically strong demand for diversity to meet individual needs of customers and necessity for high image quality in an image forming technique.
Specific techniques for forming an image with a liquid composition containing an emulsion include a technique described in WO01/057145. WO01/057145 describes a technique for improving the fastness of an image with a liquid composition containing acroylmorpholine.